Sell in the right place

How many places are you offering your product for sale? Today you could list your t-shirt in about 1000 different marketplaces and have your own online shop with a custom domain. With all these choices which one is right?

As a small seller online you need to understand the pros and cons of each venue. At some point you might want to become multi-channel but when you are starting out let’s just stick with one marketplace/storefront until you see what adding a second channel would take.

If you could only sell in one place, which storefront or marketplace do you choose?

With a marketplace, think Etsy or Storenvy, you get a built in audience, traffic and search and selling tools. Each marketplace draws people looking for unique products. Storenvy gets a mix of handmade and lifestyle brands. Etsy is vintage and handmade.

A storefront, like Big Cartel or Shopify, will provide you with a custom domain, control of the design of your shop, unique branding, and no competing with similar products in the same category views. But you will have to generate your own traffic and audience.

Once you pick the place you want to sell you have to be ready to work to make sales regardless of your choice.

I only choose hosted carts in my setups because who wants to worry about upgrading software every month. Pay a small monthly fee for those features that let you focus on growing your business.

Join a community of sellers?

I am looking into building a community of online sellers in 2014 that have their own brands and run small shops on Shopify, Storenvy, Big Cartel, Etsy, Big Commerce or other platforms. Signup below to be part of the email list so I can let you know when we start something new.